Amazing how the GH thread and post traffic slows…

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highwayman

highwayman

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…when the Gophers win and in fact dominate. Shows you how the naysayers and malignant “fans” try to spew their venom by volume. In the end they have nothing to say and add nothing to the conversation.
 



Or people are upset at the performance regardless! That was an embarrassing performance against Miami! It shows how far l we’ve come as fans to expect to blowout these teams 60-7
 




highwayman said:
…when the Gophers win and in fact dominate. Shows you how the naysayers and malignant “fans” try to spew their venom by volume. In the end they have nothing to say and add nothing to the conversation.
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Not too surprising really. The internet caters to the trolls and those who love to moan and complain about everything. When things go well, like this past Saturday, they stay away because their negativity would look foolish. But we can all rest assured they will be back the first chance they get to complain about something......

I always wonder what some of the most negative posters are like when they step out from behind their keyboard. I mean I hope they are not that negative in real life because if they are they would just be miserable to be around.
 

It's MN sports. We've been through the ringer for decades with heartbreak and watching terrible teams. Can you imagine if somehow the Gophers were like Alabama or the Vikings were like the Patriots and championships were just easy? This place would be a ghost town...everyone would be way too bored.
 

It is not malevolence but human nature.
For example, investors feel more pain when the market drops than joy when it rises.
 



tmvander said:
It's MN sports. We've been through the ringer for decades with heartbreak and watching terrible teams. Can you imagine if somehow the Gophers were like Alabama or the Vikings were like the Patriots and championships were just easy? This place would be a ghost town...everyone would be way too bored.
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Gotta disagree with you a little on this one. Ohio State fans are ready to fire their coach the second they show any sign of weakness. I haven't been on any Ohio State boards recently but I would bet there is a lot of complaining going on based on how they have started the season. When the expectations get really high it doesn't take much to set people off.

Even at a place like Alabama, I am sure there are fans obsessing over little details and finding things to be upset about. Those that want to be negative will find a way, they just have to work harder at it.
 

HopHead said:
Conversely, when the Gophers lose, I generally don't visit here until about Wednesday of the following week because of all the predictable "sky is falling/fire coach X" posts.
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This is exactly what I do. I even avoided GH for a while after the Miami win because I knew what it would be like.
 

I notice a lot of our media chirpers are quiet when the Gophers are leading.

Many were out in force during OSU when the Gophers fell down early, but quieted down as the Gophers took the lead.
Many signed off for the night before OSU came back in the end.

Same goes for this forum I suppose.
 




highwayman said:
…when the Gophers win and in fact dominate. Shows you how the naysayers and malignant “fans” try to spew their venom by volume. In the end they have nothing to say and add nothing to the conversation.
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I would like to propose a couple of alternative explanations:

1) Many people may have lives with far more important things to do than to post extensively on this board day in and day out; and/or

2) Many people may not find this board very stimulating, entertaining, or informative and may not feel particularly compelled to come here other than times around game day. Given threads like this, I can't disagree with them.

I also think Plato's analogy on this page has a lot of truth. Often people feel pain more intensely than joy.

There may be a small number of "malignant fans" (or malignant non-fans) or "trolls" who post here but most who complain do so because they feel a reason to complain and those people tend to be happy with the team when it is doing well. As far as those people who didn't give the coaches an "A" grade for the Colorado performance, I suspect that is a function of working from ideal standards instead of practical ones rather than something indicative of malignancy.
 
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GopherHole Staff said:
Our traffic is definitely higher after wins than loses. And it’s not even close.
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Is this just site visitors or like posts and threads made? I could see where maybe more people visit the site after a win, but “Season’s over,” “Fire the coach,” or “Dropping my season tickets after 20 years” threads crop up after a loss and then generate 100 replies of arguing, giving the impression that the board is more active after losses than wins.
 

When we lose we're all on the shrinks couch pouring out our fears and grievances ... And trying to grasp with what happened after having hopes and dreams crushed. Some are just more malignant and vengeful.
But when we win ... Well we just downed a 16-ounce steak with sauteed mushrooms and onions, some roasted baby potatoes, And maybe a local brew. we are fat and happy for a few days.
 

Win or lose, I visit pretty much every day during the season. I find things relatively tolerable in here after a loss compared to the StarTribune comments. I find most GHers have some sense of reality and know something about college football; over at the Strib it's more like President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho's cabinet figured out how to connect to the internet.
 

The quick thread starting is more frequent after a loss, we will do a better job of combining those into one master thread going forward.
 

It seems expectations are higher this season given Fleck's comments before the season started.

When a HC says, paraphrasing, "This is my best team since arriving", fans want to believe it. The first two games certainly raised concerns.
 

There are a few key classes of posters here and in pretty much any forum.

1. The relentlessly positive, everything is awesome crowd - We are Minnesota sports fans so we don't have many of those, it has been beaten out of us.

2. Rational Crowd - fans of the team who can see the good and bad and discuss it without resorting to name calling or being a jerk in general. Majority of this forum falls in this category in my opinion.

3. Trolls - Negative for the sake of being negative or fans of other teams that just like ticking people off. We have a handful of those here that surface whenever something doesn't go right and tend to be much harder to find when things are going well.

Sure there are some subsets of each group and we all trend one way or the other with it. Tough part is ignoring the trolls. Unfortunately they tend to yell the loudest and quickly derail threads.
 

First, it seems like the Gopher Hole Staff is casting doubt on the premise.

Second, I think this is explainable by evolutionary science. Our minds are programmed to react more strongly to the negative than the positive. When something goes wrong, it gets our brain's attention because there is a problem that needs to be solved. When something goes right, it does not require any additional attention to fix it, so it does not get our mind's attention the same way. This is why the U.S. Army does resiliency training around spending time each day to consciously think about good things that happened ("hunting the good") to counteract the brain's natural focus on the negative.
 

HopHead said:
Conversely, when the Gophers lose, I generally don't visit here until about Wednesday of the following week because of all the predictable "sky is falling/fire coach X" posts.
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or not win by large enough margin
 

It is what it is, but I will say I was happy as a clam after that win. GREAT defensive play and to dominate on the road shows moxie.

As per usual, PJ Fleck has built a tough team that will hang with anyone.
 

I think it might help if people were actually able to see the game.
 

Gopherhole is a cheap source of entertainment.

Some of the spouses must know how to hightail out of the way after a Gopher loss.

It is not the end of the world.
 

To be honest, I think it's more amusing to read the negative comments after a loss - purely for entertainment value. After a win, we tend to get a lot of posts about how wonderful Fleck is and how great the team is. And those get old pretty quick. But after a loss, the people who are melting down are hilarious.

For the same reason, I always listen to the Vikings' post-game call-in shows after a loss just to hear the drunk fans losing their minds.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
First, it seems like the Gopher Hole Staff is casting doubt on the premise.

Second, I think this is explainable by evolutionary science. Our minds are programmed to react more strongly to the negative than the positive. When something goes wrong, it gets our brain's attention because there is a problem that needs to be solved. When something goes right, it does not require any additional attention to fix it, so it does not get our mind's attention the same way. This is why the U.S. Army does resiliency training around spending time each day to consciously think about good things that happened ("hunting the good") to counteract the brain's natural focus on the negative.
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As Ski U Mah pointed out is traffic == posts, because if it isn't then OP's point stands
 

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